Since naturally occurring uranium (U-238) has a half life of 4.5 billion years, then it means half of the uranium on earth has decayed into lead by now. But why only half, and why that specific half? What was special about the particles that did decay? Were they different in some way?
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its a natural behavior of random systems.
you flip 100 coins, you expect 50 of them to be tails. you flip the other 50, you expect 25 to be tails. you flip the remaining 25…
> What was special about the particles that did decay?
it’s actually an important fact that the answer is “nothing.” radioactive decay is *genuinely* random.
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